Elizabeth Roach raises her hand to mimic how the gunman held his pistol and fired it into the air during Kevin McGregor's trial at the Boulder County Justice Center on Thursday. McGregor is charged with the March 18 murder of Todd Walker.
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MARK LEFFINGWELL
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Follow Camera reporter Erica Meltzer on Twitter at @meltzere for live coverage of the Kevin McGregor trial. Updates will be posted throughout the day at dailycamera.com as well.

Even as the masked gunman pointed his weapon at the sky and fired, even after she had pulled down the bandanna covering his face and seen it was not some friend with a bad sense of humor, there was a part of Elizabeth Roach that did not believe what was happening was real.

"This is Boulder," Roach said. "This doesn't happen here."

She turned to keep walking home from the intersection of 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, where the gunman had confronted Roach and friend Todd Walker, 20, a native of Edwards and a football player at the University of New Hampshire who was visiting friends in Boulder over his spring break.

The gunman had demanded money, and Roach had said, "You're a joke. I'm not giving you my money," she testified Thursday at the murder trial of Kevin McGregor, 23, of Longmont.

Police identified McGregor as the gunman less than 24 hours after the March 18 shooting. He faces charges of first-degree murder, felony murder and aggravated robbery.

Roach wept as she described the confrontation with the gunman that ended with the death of her friend Walker, but her voice remained steady through her testimony, which lasted an hour and a half.

"I'm not (expletive) around," she said the gunman said. "Give me all your money."

"I'm not (expletive) around, either," she said she responded. "Get out of my face."

After the gunman fired in the air, Roach started to leave. She pulled on Walker's sleeve to get him to leave with her, but he was "glued to the ground," she said.

Todd Maclain Walker

"Leave her alone," Walker said. "We don't have any money."

Roach said she saw the gunman push Walker and Walker push back. She thought the gunman was going to push again, but instead the gunman shot Walker.

At first, the second gunshot didn't register, and she started to walk away. She realized Walker was not behind her, saw the gunman run past her and saw Walker on the ground.

Roach held her bleeding friend in her arms and called 911. Her frantic cries for help were played for jurors as the trial got underway Thursday after three days of jury selection, and jurors were shown Roach's bloody jacket and Walker's blood-stained and bullet-torn shirts.

One of the first police officers on the scene described Roach as uncooperative and difficult, and she said that was true.

She had been pulled away from her friend and made to give statement after statement to officers and detectives, while her bloody hands and neck were swabbed for evidence. All the while, she didn't know if her friend had lived or died.

"I was pissed," Roach said. "I was really, really mad."

"Why?" asked Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, who is handling the prosecution himself, along with Deputy District Attorney Karen Lorenz.

" 'Cause he shot my friend," Roach said.

Defense attorneys presented a different version of events. In his opening statement, public defender John Gifford said McGregor had no intention of robbing anyone that night. His intention was to catch the last bus back to his parents' house in Longmont after having a few drinks downtown.

When he missed the bus, he decided to spend the night at his place of employment, Which Wich, something he occasionally did. When his path crossed with that of Roach and Walker, Gifford said, McGregor whistled at Roach, and when she confronted him, instead of walking away, he got into an argument with her, one in which Walker also became involved.

Gifford said McGregor was scared because it was dark and he was alone. He pulled out his gun and fired it in the air, an act that Gifford called "reckless" but not premeditated. Walker then grabbed for the gun, and during the struggle, "The gun went off and Todd Walker was shot by the gun."

Gifford said Roach told the robbery story to cover up her own guilt at what happened and asked jurors to listen carefully to her story to see if it "all makes sense when you put it all together."

"This started with a whistle and an argument about that whistle," Gifford said. "He did not commit the crime of first-degree murder. He did not commit the crime of felony murder. He did not commit the crime of aggravated robbery."

On the stand, Roach said the gunman did not whistle at her or make any kind of flattering or suggestive comments.

When public defender Eric Zale cross-examined her, he did not challenge that statement. He asked about some details of her story, including whether she ever told one of the detectives that the gunman didn't come from behind a car, as she has generally said. She said the gunman did come from behind a car, and she didn't think she would ever have said otherwise.

Zale also asked her about whether she was angry and uncooperative with police, including whether she punched a wall at the police station -- she did -- and about her feelings of guilt about her actions.

"It has to be really hard to tell your friends, your family, his family," Zale said. "I understand you feel some guilt about this. I understand you told Detective (Chuck) Heidel it was your fault. And he said, 'No, it's not your fault. You aren't the one who shot him.'"

Roach said that was correct.

"He didn't ask you why you would think it was your fault?" Zale asked.

"No," Roach said.

In his opening statement, Garnett painted a contrasting picture of Walker, the wholesome, fun-loving kid who spent his entire life before college in the mountain town of Edwards, near Vail, and McGregor, whom Garnett characterized as a "street thug wannabe," who carried a gun and wrote violent rap lyrics.

Garnett showed jurors the receipt for two steak tacos that McGregor bought less than half an hour after the shooting, a Facebook post McGregor made from Which Wich a few hours after the shooting that said, "haha (expletive) son, what now?" and a private message sent to a friend via Facebook the next morning that said, "might as well call me a gangsta, (expletive) went off tonight, n I ain't about to type it. I'll tell you when I cruise down if I'm still free."

McGregor was supposed to be serving a five-year prison for second-degree assault in connection with a robbery in south Boulder in 2008, but he was successful in having his sentence changed to probation and was released in January 2010.

Jurors are not being told about his prior conviction, and a fourth charge of possession of a weapon by a previous offender has been separated from the murder charges.

Prosecutors pointed to forensics evidence to bolster their contention that the confrontation was intended as an armed robbery.

A crime scene investigator found a live round of the same caliber and brand as two spent shell casings a little bit east of the crime scene. Prosecutors say this shows McGregor ejected a round to make sure there would be a round in the chamber, ready to fire, before he approached Walker and Roach.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Arnall said the bullet traveled down about 5 inches from where it entered Walker's upper left chest to where it exited through his back.

On its short journey, the bullet cut through Walker's lung and pulmonary artery. He would have died very quickly, Arnall said.

Arnall said there was no soot or stippling -- small burn marks in the skin from gunpowder -- such as commonly found on wounds made at close range. However, under cross-examination, he said that layers of clothing can mean soot or stippling isn't left on the skin, even when the shot was fired from very close.

Prosecutors may call another 14 to 19 witnesses -- in addition to the six called Thursday -- before they rest their case.

The trial is expected to go to the jury next week.

Kevin McGregor looks at the family and friends of Todd Walker while sitting next to his defense attorney, John Gifford, left, on Thursday during his murder trial. ( JEREMY PAPASSO)

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